


cover me over (in my sleep)

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Illnesses, Sick Character, cured by hotness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: Cat is... oh no. Cat's sick. Guess who's on nursemaid duty?





	cover me over (in my sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so method I got sick from writing this, ugh.

Cat’s been back in position as CEO for three weeks when it happens. 

Kara’s just checking that Eve hasn’t messed up the calendar when she hears it. It doesn’t take super-hearing, not when Kara is standing just outside those glass walls. 

“Cat?” She calls across the space between them, still enjoying how decadent it feels to be allowed to use that name, to be so familiar where anyone can overhear. “Did you just-”

“Dust,” Cat snaps, never lifting her head from where she’s bent over a stack of reports. “Go about your day, Kara.”

Obeying, Kara finishes amending the calendar and marches back to her office with more purpose than she feels. She already knows she’ll be listening out for Cat for the rest of the day.

***

By three there’s no denying it. Kara is already in motion when she hears the coughing, but the way Cat’s voice breaks mid-Tessmacher almost has Kara using superspeed through the bullpen.

“You’re sick,” she accuses, careful to shut herself in the glass office and close the doors behind her. “It’s not really bad yet, but you’re coming down with something.”

“I don’t get sick,” Cat bleats, sinking back into the comfort of her desk chair, cradled by it as she finally lets those proud shoulders slump a little. She’s in a dark green pantsuit today, the only lightness in her look provided by a cream-colored camisole. The pendant around her neck is heavy and gold, and already she’s fussing with it as the irritation of a sore throat begins to settle in. 

“Well, I think the first thing is to get you out of here.” Kara switches into her old crisis mode without conscious choice. “I’ll have a sanitizing clean of the office so no germs linger, and while I would remind you we can’t fire anyone for sneezing, I’m assuming you want me to start a search for Patient Zero?”

“Have Miss Tessmacher do it.”

“I can-”

“You’re taking me home.”

“I-I am?” Kara isn’t quite expecting that, and for a wild moment she thinks Cat is commanding Supergirl, that she wants to be flown home on a wave of wind and a flickering cape. “You mean I should call your driver? Right away.”

“I’ll need… things.”

“Of course,” Kara is already firing off a message to her friend Marjorie at Cat’s preferred drugstore. She knows from Alex’s vague maladies over the years that there are bottles and potions and well, texting ‘flu emergency kit assemble please’ will have to do the trick. Marjorie will know what to do. “Do you have a fever?”

Cat certainly looks pale everywhere but her cheeks, which are rosier than Kara’s for once, even through the expertly-applied blush. When Cat’s eyes open again, they’re glassy, and Kara wonders if she should be suspecting something more sinister than cold and flu season. It would hardly be the first time CatCo had been targeted by biological agents, but everyone else in the bullpen seems fully functional. 

“If you think I’m letting you stick a thermometer anywhere interesting, you’ve got another thing coming, Danvers.” Cat has a heavy grip on her table as she pulls herself back to standing. “Is the car waiting?” Kara checks her phone and nods in affirmation.

“Do you want me to ask Carter’s dad if he can stay there?” Kara asks, since it’s changeover day. “I know he won’t want to risk getting sick before his big project is due.”

Cat wavers, and Kara suspects the prospect of a hug from Carter is one of Cat’s few genuine comforts in life. The mother’s urge to protect wins out, and she agrees to Kara’s suggestion with a weak nod. 

“Let’s go,” she rasps, and what her illnesses lack in frequency they seem to be making up for in potency. Cat looks drained, and it’s only been a matter of hours. 

“Take my arm,” Kara urges, placing herself at Cat’s side. “I know, personal space. But do you really want to end up flat on your face out there? Cell phones have video, Miss Grant.”

“And anyone uploading something like that-” Cat dissolves into a fit of coughing. It takes a long minute to recover, and she clutches Kara’s arm as she does. “Will be banned from CatCo networks for life.”

“We know,” Kara assures her. “Even if it wasn’t in all of our contracts, the fact that you scream it at people before you fire them is always a timely reminder.”

“Kara Danvers, was that sass?”

“No, just… a factual observation.” They’ve made it to the elevator without incident. Kara is ready to steer Cat into it and retreat to the communal elevator bank, but the moment she tries to pull away, Cat yanks Kara into the private space with her. It’s just luck that Kara realizes quickly enough for Cat’s feeble tug to actually have any effect on her. 

“Are you dying?” Kara blurts once the doors close. She is never, ever allowed in this elevator. 

“What is your fascination with that?” Cat growls in response. “If I leave, I’m dying. If I let you ride in my elevator, I’m dying. It’s just a flu, probably. Any human with a pair of eyes can see that.”

“Right,” Kara agrees. “Which I can. Because I’m human.”

Cat’s glare is withering, and Kara thinks the moment is finally here. She holds her breath, but Cat’s next coughing fit puts paid to any confrontation, and by the time it subsides they’re crossing the underground parking lot. Kara eases Cat into the backseat of the town car and jogs around to the other side.

“One stop,” Kara informs the driver, sending the drugstore address straight to his GPS. “Then Miss Grant will be home for the day. Thank you.”

“So bossy,” Cat murmurs, listless as she presses back against the seat, eyes closed. Kara leans over her and pulls her seatbelt into place. “Where did you get that from?”

Kara bites back an answer that Cat herself would have been proud of, and looks out the window at passing traffic as they move off. 

***

“Well, thank you,” Cat announces the moment they hit the foyer of her penthouse. “I’ll need that bag.” She reaches for the sack of provisions from the pharmacy. Kara withdraws it, scandalized.

“Oh no, I don’t think so.”

“Excuse me?” Cat’s indignation is interrupted by a coughing fit that wracks her whole body. She doesn’t have the strength to resist the way Kara scoops her up.

“You know, it’s lucky you’re so petite,” Kara covers, badly. “Makes it much easier to pick you up.”

“And I suppose you spend a lot of time in the gym,” Cat adds when she gets her voice back, albeit a ragged and slightly raspy version. “Tell me, where exactly do you work out, Kara? Because you don’t have a membership for the CatCo gym on site.”

“No, I work out with my sister.” There’s a ring of truth Cat wasn’t expecting. “Her work has great facilities, and it’s a way to hang out that isn’t just junk food and Netflix. That’s better for her… I mean, both of us.”

“You’re warm,” Cat answers instead of picking the fight. Her home is what Architectural Digest once called ‘sprawling’, but she doesn’t ask how Kara knows which room is hers. The slip of glasses ever so slightly down that perfectly regular nose explains enough for now. She burrows into Kara’s easy hold, and is reluctant to leave it when they finally cross the threshold of the master bedroom.

“Here we are.” The announcement is redundant, but Cat sees the blush on Kara’s cheeks upon laying Cat gently on top of the bed. “Now, direct me to something comfortable for you, and then it’s time to get some soothing tea and whatever the pharmacy provided.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Cat says, reaching for Kara and only catching her wrist. “Kara, listen to me. This is not your job. It never was.”

“But we’re friends now,” Kara replies, and Cat has to look away because that much sincerity feels like looking at the sun during an eclipse. “And I really don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t exactly see a line waiting to take over from me. So, can I?”

Sometimes Cat thinks that Kara is as aware of this power as her super ones--that she only has to ask and Cat would give her the world on a stick. There are moments when something regal peeks through, someone used to clicking her fingers and having the world shape to her every demand. After all, it takes one to know one, as the more asinine clichés would have it. 

“Fine, but don’t expect me to be a model patient.”

Kara laughs so long and hard that Cat has time to completely strip and change into pajamas in her dressing room before the laughter subsides. 

“You shouldn’t have gotten up,” Kara says with a pout when Cat reemerges. “I put you right on the bed.”

Cat shoots her a glare and crawls pointedly under the covers. “I’m capable of walking. I believe I was promised tea.”

“Should I… you know…”

“Spike it with any of the open single malts, yes.” Cat slips her reading glasses on and picks up her unfinished copy of _What Happened_. “Don’t give me that Puritan expression, Kara. It’s bad enough you dress like one. Most cultures agree that a good splash of alcohol helps the medicine go down.”

As soon as she leaves the room, Cat sinks back against the rearranged mountain of pillows, half of which she’s sure aren’t even supposed to be on this bed. She feels completely lousy, and it’s been years since she let anything slow her down this much or this quickly. Which begs the question of whether she’s especially sick, or if something in her just caved at the prospect of freely-offered TLC.

No. That would be pathetic, and that’s the last thing she’s going to be. 

She takes a swig from the bottle of cough syrup, since there’s little point in measuring. Rifling through the various cold and flu medications, she picks a non-clashing regimen for herself and downs the pills with the water Kara has already been thoughtful enough to leave out, despite her laughing fit.

“Here,” Kara is urging a moment later. “I know you’re tired, but drink this first and you’ll sleep better. I promise.”

“You’d better have cared for humans before,” Cat says, accepting the tea. The honey and lemon smells healthy and welcoming as she sips. The perfect temperature and the kick of a mid-market Islay whisky underneath. Kara should reconsider a career in nursing, alien or not. She cuts off the fumbling protestations. “We should talk, when I’m better. You don’t have to be worried about me knowing.”

The mug is drained, and god, this bed is comfortable. It could only be better if the improvised wall of pillows were a warm person to snuggle into instead. 

“... when you wake up,” Kara is saying. It’s enough to make Cat smile as she drifts off.

***

Kara actually goes home for a while. She can hear Cat’s heartbeat, so she’ll know if she wakes or is in any kind of additional distress. Relaying the symptoms to Alex helps, even if she does make a few too many ‘rather you than me’ remarks about what is mostly likely Cat with the flu. 

Only when Cat’s heartbeat picks up a few notches does Kara fly herself back across the city like a dart, relieved that her affordable neighborhood isn’t so very far from Cat’s, the most affluent in National City. Kara’s walking back into Cat’s bedroom by the time she’s sitting all the way upright, reaching for the glass of water on the nightstand. 

“Ready for phase two?” Kara asks, trying not to enjoy too much how cute Cat looks, with her oversized silk pajamas in burgundy, sleep-tousled hair, and a pillow crease on her cheek. 

“You know, if you do work with a shady government organization and they have any highly experimental cures lying around…”

Kara shakes her head. She can put the conversation off a little longer. “Phase two is steam. Best thing for your chest.”

“Ugh,” Cat grumbles, reaching for her tissues as a flurry of sneezes begin. “This is miserable, but I should be getting back to the office. A nap was nice, but come on-”

“You’re contagious,” Kara reminds her. “You don’t have to exert yourself. Just come sit in the bathroom while I run the shower hot. That steam should be enough.”

“I have a _steam_ room,” Cat points out. 

“Oh.” Of course she does. “Then even better. Where exactly…”

“Next to the bathroom. Go ahead, see if you can work it out. Otherwise I’ll switch everything on when I get there.”

“I’m taking you to it,” Kara decides. She will not have Cat passing out in the hall on her conscience. It’s the work of seconds to walk Cat down the hall. “Wait, what are you doing?” Cat is pulling her pajama top over her head, after fiddling fruitlessly with the buttons.

“You don’t wear clothes in the steam room. Honestly.” The eye roll is still majestic, at least. “Now chop, chop. Get out of that Forever 21 homage to the nun’s habit if you’re coming in with me.”

“I am?”

“You don’t have to,” Cat insists, but Kara knows by now when she’s being toyed with. “And if I faint from the heat, well, it won’t do too much damage.”

“Here,” Kara untangles Cat from her pajama top, leaving her half naked. “Can you manage the pants? Cause I need to get undressed too.”

More fool Cat for thinking Kara is a prude. Humans are the ones tied up in weird judgments about nudity. Kryptonians only started wearing robes when the planet’s weather became dangerously unstable. Before that, they’d practically been nudists, save for some strategically placed jewelry. Her first few years on Earth it had been a struggle to keep clothes on, much to Alex’s frequent embarrassment. Kara kicks her skirt and cardigan aside, before gathering all her clothes into a neat little pile.

“I... “ Cat Grant. Speechless. Kara runs a hand over her abs, before punching some basic settings into the steam room control panel. “Well, come along,” Cat pushes past, as though this is something they do every day. Kara mutters a prayer to Rao and follows Cat into the room, taking a seat on the smooth bench next to her.

“This is nice,” Kara groans, leaning back as the soothing eucalyptus steam engulfs them. “How are you feeling?”

“Like this is as good time as any for the E! True Kara Danvers Story.”

“You’re really not letting it go, are you?” Kara sighs.

“No.” Cat coughs, pointedly. “I’m sick, so cheer me up.”

“My planet died,” Kara begins, and the weight lifts from her shoulders like an eagle taking flight. “Just before it did, my parents and Kal-El’s parents got us both out in travel pods. You know the rest of his story. Mine isn’t so different, I just got… delayed on the way here.”

“For how long?”

“Twenty-four years.”

Cat sits up straight at that. “Damn, Kara.”

“It’s fine, time didn’t pass for me. I was asleep, sort of. Anyway, here I am. You know Supergirl’s story better than anyone. The things in between don’t matter that much. Probably kinda boring for someone like you.”

“You’ve never bored me,” Cat says. “I know I’ve dismissed you for babbling or telling me too much at times, but I was never bored. Thank you, for telling me.”

“That’s what friends do, right?” Kara still isn’t sure how that word fits for them. She has friends, sure, but she also knows how complicated it gets when one friend in a pair also finds the other too gorgeous for words. Her crush on Cat is long-running but no less potent for the time it stretches over. It’s enough to have this correct-name, steam room closeness. Kara doesn’t dare push for more.

“I’m feeling a little better,” Cat says when the silence stretches out. “I think catching it early has helped. So, thank you for the enthusiastic nursing. The nudity didn’t exactly hurt.”

“No?”

“I didn’t know you had it in you, Kara Danvers. I expected you to fly through a wall in panic. Though looking at you now, I think you’re well aware your muscle definition can heal the sick, make the blind see, et cetera.”

“You’re looking.” Not a question. Kara heard exactly what Cat said. “You know, if you weren’t so ill…”

“What?” Cat demands.

“We’ll just have to find out when you’re better, won’t we?” Kara replies, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

***

On the third day Cat is back at work, if a little under par. She barks at people until her voice gets too raspy, then settles for diatribes by email. Three people resign and one person in accounting hides under his desk every time the email notification sound plays. 

Kara keeps her distance, having been politely sent home after her attempts at chicken soup caused a small, localized fire in the area of Cat’s spotless kitchen. At least she was free to use her freeze breath to put it out. Nothing’s been said about their steamy conversation, and Kara isn’t sure she can summon that much bravery twice in one week.

So she keeps her professional distance, loses herself in an interesting article for once, and waits for Cat to reach out. That reaching isn’t supposed to be at nine o’clock Friday evening, but that’s when Cat shows up at Kara’s apartment anyway.

“Are you… lost?” Kara asks, opening the door wider so Cat can come in.

“I’m _well_ ,” Cat responds, which seems like the answer to another question entirely. “Which you would have noticed if you’d come by my office at any point today. You didn’t.”

“I was out most of it,” Kara explains. “Snapper had me waiting around for quotes at the Mayor’s office, then Supergirl had to stop yet another Luthor outdoor event from turning into carnage.”

“Remind me to send Lena some flowers,” Cat replies. “With a list of all the marquee providers CatCo has ever used. She does _know_ events can be held indoors, right?”

“It’s something about being open and accessible. And you’re in my living room, which makes me pretty open and accessible. I guess I’m just wondering… why?”

“Earlier in the week I was full of germs and other indignities I’d rather not dwell on,” Cat picks up her thread like she was never distracted. “Even so, you had the kindness and presence of mind to try and heal me with hotness.”

“You mean the steam room? Or the soup?”

“ _Neither_.” Kara catches on, and feels herself start to blush. “Well, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“How heroic,” Cat scoffs. “So what I’m here to find out is if that was a limited engagement, or if the show is available Friday nights for an interested audience?”

“You mean-” Kara doesn’t get to play dumb any longer, because Cat cuts her off with a brief but perfect kiss. “Oh.”

“Well?”

“Definitely a Friday show,” Kara confirms, starting a kiss of her own. This time she feels the first flick of Cat’s tongue against her own lips and superpowered or not, Kara’s knees just about give out on her. “Keep that up and there’ll be a matinée tomorrow, too.”

“Excellent,” Cat practically purrs, steering Kara towards her sofa. “Not that there’s any pressure, of course. Let’s just see how the night develops?”

Kara’s answer is to tug her T-shirt up and over her head, leaving her in her bra and running shorts. The smile she gets in response is more than approving. “I think it’s going to develop just fine.”


End file.
